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I have very little insight on why we invaded Afghanistan, and await some inspiring insight from some foreign source down the road, long after the goals have been achieved. Meanwhile, in true post-Vietnam fashion, the details are being withheld from the American public, and we are shielded by close control of imagery. If we don’t see pictures, we do not comprehend the violence that we are raining down on those people. We do, of course, hear abut our own trials and travails and casualties. The bastards!

The debate is framed as “should we send more troops” or not. The real alternative, getting out, is not given hearing here in the land of the free.

The above interview aired in Great Britain.

The following viral email has something unusual going on in it – it contains truth. It is about Jewish accomplishments in science, economics and literature – they are far disproportionate to their relative numbers in the human population. Of course, the base goal of the email is to degrade Muslims, and the origin is probably in the basement of some stupid right wing Christian.

I answered this email as follows:

Since this is one of those annoying viral emails, it doesn’t deserve a lot of attention. I will only tell you that you are on the precipice of important information. The Jewish culture has indeed produced scholars, artists and scientists far out of proporttion to their numbers. Some have traced the origins of this phenomenon back to the Ashkenazi Jews of northern and central Europe. But it is much more complicated than that, and further research would be warranted on your part.

Just a few observations:

One, Jewish accomplishments far exceed those of all gentiles, not just Muslims. I don’t know what the point is here.

Two, Jewish people, very, very intellectually accomplished, don’t believe in Jesus. Maybe you should rethink your position on that.

Third, and not unrelated, there are very few Jewish Cy Young Award winners. I can only think of one: Sandy Koufax. There are no Jewish linemen in the NFL.

And finally, there are about 13 million Jews in the world today, yet your Revelations tells us that only 144,000 will survive – 12,000 each from the twelve tribes. Your Jesus is going to slaughter all the rest.

What’s up with that?

Very interesting article here, by Charles Murray.

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Here’s the email making the rounds:

I micro-burst or sorts blew through here these past couple of days, in the post below entitled “A Fun Week“. Dave Budge and “Black Flag” had a discussion going on over at Electric City Weblog and it spilled over here. It reminded me of the closing scenes of Blazing Saddles, and Harvey Korman’s words to the cab driver: “Get me out of this movie“.

But it was interesting and I presume nothing. These are two men representing strains of the libertarian ideology, which is well-grounded and with which I am wholly at odds. I believe in human freedom, and that without government, we cannot be free. That, to the libertarian, if I may so presume, is contradictory, as government itself holds in its hands the chains by which we enslave ourselves.

So Dave and Black Flag fought it out, and were at the boundaries of polite restraint, and did not cross it. Here are some notable snippets from the post below – they are not at all linked -just things that made me go “Hmm” as I read through the exchange. Each one could lead to another micro-burst.

Wisdom is the understanding of one’s own ignorance. (DB, citing Socrates)

Man’s fatal flaw is imposing his assumptions on his fellow men. (Black Flag)

You fall into the trap of many libertarian ideologues that ideological purity holds primacy over politics. Fine, but what we have is politics to deal with. (Budge)

Absolutely – randomness does not defile consistency. Do you think a dice is consistent? Does it not provide an ‘answer’ with a range? Every time? Today as it did yesterday, and will tomorrow? (BF)

Yes, but you see Dave, I’m chatting with you, not them – because they’re dead, and hopefully, you’re not. BF

Ayn Rand said that there were no contradictions in nature, and that apparent contradictions could be resolved by changing underlying thought assumptions. I’ve been troubled by one of very large implications for many years now. It was called the “Kirkpatrick Doctrine” and was used as justification for U.S. support of right wing dictatorships. In essence, Ambassador Kirkpatrick said that oppressive left wing regimes like the Soviet Union could not be dislodged because they owned the minds of their subjects by means of indoctrination and thought control. Right wing totalitarian states merely acted to control behavior, and could easily be replaced by democratic societies.

My only problem is this: The leadership of the Soviet Union gave up power without bloodshed.

It’s been quite an interesting week, what with arguing with Craig Moore about the Lancet study on Iraq deaths and all. Plus, as Steve points out below, Electric City Weblog has been great fun. A lot of it has to do with Budge being back on beam, but the subject matter and the wide range of personalities have a lot to do with it too.

That is what blogging is about, in my mind. We don’t inform, we are a small community, the world doesn’t care about us, but it is fun.

I did learn one thing, however, something as obvious as the nose on my face; something that, once I realized it, cleared a whole lot of smoke from the air around US foreign policy.

It is the definition of “terrorism”. Here’s what the Army Field Manual says:

the unlawful use–or threat–of force or violence against people or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives.”

Here is what it means in actual practice as the U.S. patrols the world:

Carol at her very interesting Missoulapolis blog broaches a subject that intrigues me – tweeting. She references another blogger (making this a blog circle-jerk) who says that, oh my gosh, President Obama doesn’t write his own tweets.

I would be so disappointed if he did. I find nothing in our society more illustrative of our shallowness than the tweet culture. I once thought of them as haikus, a form of poetry. People were compressing large thoughts down to a few ethereally transmissible words. Since I am not capable of reading or writing poetry, or of compressing thoughts, I thought that the twitter culture was a good thing, or at least would lead to some useful literature.

Of course it’s not and hasn’t led to anything interesting or useful. It’s pop culture made even poppier and banal. There is only one further step downward – the elimination of language as a vehicle for complex thought, or Wordspeak.

All of my blogging energy for a week got used up in one day today. Craig Moore wanted to have it out with me over the “Lancet 2” report from 2006, the one that said that 655,000 Iraqis had died in that war. Gregg set up a special thread over at Electric City Weblog, and I spent some time reading material referenced by Craig, and writing my own summary of the pros and cons of Lancet and the implications of the theater around it.

So I wrote it up, and tried to be thorough and fair, though I could not resist using the expression “Vichy Iraq” for the new government the U.S. installed.

Craig’s response was classic: “BS”. That was it.

Last anyone heard of him, Craig Moore was farming cattle around Ryegate, Montana. He never again entered a blog site.